I have amny RC friends and relatives. PT, you are the only OO I know, and that is only through this board.

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"If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what w

what about friends who are PROTESTANT - OR - Non-denominational franciscans

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"Where I live in Manhattan and where I work at ABC, people say 'conservative' the way people say 'child molester.' Leftist thinking is just the culture that I live in and the culture the reporters who populate the mainstream media

and... what about friends who are heathens all together... :-D I have quite a few (hindi, buddhists, etc).

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Now where were we? Oh yeah - the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

and... what about friends who are heathens all together... :-D I have quite a few (hindi, buddhists, etc).

Me, too! And throw in a few weird earth-worshipping wiccan type pagans, Unitarian Universalists, real American Indians, and wannabe Rastafarians.

Because of my history (convert, still agnostic husband :'(, living in THE most liberal town in the US ... Nader beat Clinton and Dole). It makes me crazy.

I have several RC friends, an ultra-conservative RC priest friend with the most acerbic wit and very little tact, and the closest, most rewarding friendship I have ever experienced is with my Ukrainian Catholic sponsor/mentor , but it's also a very rural area... difficult to meet people.

I know God put me here for a reason. It's a fascinating place... I'm feeling less worried about not ever being "comfortable" with the viewpoints of various groups. Never a dull moment.

My hope is to grow as an apologist for Christ to the people around me.

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"To live is to change, and to become perfect is to change often." - John Henry Neumann

and... what about friends who are heathens all together... :-D I have quite a few (hindi, buddhists, etc).

Me, too! And throw in a few weird earth-worshipping wiccan type pagans, Unitarian Universalists, real American Indians, and wannabe Rastafarians.

Because of my history (convert, still agnostic husband :'(, living in THE most liberal town in the US ... Nader beat Clinton and Dole). It makes me crazy.

I have several RC friends, an ultra-conservative RC priest friend with the most acerbic wit and very little tact, and the closest, most rewarding friendship I have ever experienced is with my Ukrainian Catholic sponsor/mentor , but it's also a very rural area... difficult to meet people.

I know God put me here for a reason. It's a fascinating place... I'm feeling less worried about not ever being "comfortable" with the viewpoints of various groups. Never a dull moment.

My hope is to grow as an apologist for Christ to the people around me.

Nice to hear your posting, Am. So many threads lately seem to overflow with a distinct lack of Christian charity, and love for one another.

My three best friends are Orthodox, agnostic, and Jewish. I love them all dearly. My wife, unfortunately, is "spiritual" but not "into" Orthodoxy. :'(

My agnostic and Jewish friends are much better "Christians" than I am. They are also much better "Christians" than any other non-clergy Orthodox I can think of. I cannot believe that, if the end time was tomorrow, that these friends of mine would be without God's Grace.

Arcata, CA... six hours north of SF... "behind the Redwood Curtain", in notorious Humboldt County... only a couple hours west of Platina.

Originally from CT.

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Nice to hear your posting, Am. So many threads lately seem to overflow with a distinct lack of Christian charity, and love for one another. My three best friends are Orthodox, agnostic, and Jewish. I love them all dearly. My wife, unfortunately, is "spiritual" but not "into" Orthodoxy. My agnostic and Jewish friends are much better "Christians" than I am. They are also much better "Christians" than any other non-clergy Orthodox I can think of. I cannot believe that, if the end time was tomorrow, that these friends of mine would be without God's Grace.

Alas... many of my agnostic friends are also better "Christians" than I.

As for the lack of Christian charity... I guess that can come from being isolated from people who think differently. I know most of my more liberal friends are truly ignorant about how differently judeo-christians view the meaning of life, and thus judge conservatives, especially religious conservatives harshly.

There is a serious disconnect in how religious and non-religious people understand each other's views. It's difficult for them to empathise with the other because they're not really even speaking the same language.

I've been around both poles so much, at this point, I guess I can argue with just about anybody!

As for my husband... we've always been complete opposites, which makes for a spicy marriage. I'm INFP, he's ESTJ. I'm an artist, he's a Scientist with a capital "S"!

Sometimes I despair about our differences, and I think my ongoing conversion scares us both... we just had a good discussion about this the other day. He always surprises me by understanding a lot more than I give him credit for.

I know what you guys mean. My roommate is becoming a good friend is genuinely nice person. It's just that his secular viewpoint makes him think that he's not doing anything wrong (with regards to sex - that it isn't damaging in any way to him) and that Christians are just "repressing human nature" by being prude about sex.

Today, he said that he was listening to someone on some Christian Radio station blab about how society is sexually immoral, quoting many statistics on abortion, sexual abuse, etc. His response was to just look at your own priests/ministers. Yup, the unbelievers love to make hasty generalizations.

I have many evangelical friends, that is my background before becoming orthodox. I also have some RC and Anglican friends.

There are many things about my evangelical past that I cherish; such as, the intense devotion and enthusiasim of studying the scriptures. I also appreciate their focus on the serious & heart felt devotion to following Christ.

There must always be grace and love when discussing such matters of the heart.

Jake

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Troparion - Tone 1:O Sebastian, spurning the assemblies of the wicked,You gathered the wise martyrs Who with you cast down the enemy; And standing worthily before the throne of God, You gladden those who cry to you:Glory to him who has strengthened you! Glory to him who has granted you a crown!

I have many evangelical friends, that is my background before becoming orthodox. I also have some RC and Anglican friends.

There are many things about my evangelical past that I cherish; such as, the intense devotion and enthusiasim of studying the scriptures. I also appreciate their focus on the serious & heart felt devotion to following Christ.

There must always be grace and love when discussing such matters of the heart.

Jake

What I remember fondly about my Evangelical days are the early ones, when I was a teenaged Southern Baptist. We didn't know much, but we were on fire for God, and we studied the Bible (the abridged version) like there was no tomorrow (because we thought there might not be!). It was fun and exciting, and I really wouldn't trade those days for anything. I think God honored our innocent sincerity.

Sadly, I eventually got caught up in Calvinism, a thing and a time I do not recall fondly. In fact, thinking about it makes me sick. It ultimately made an atheist out of me, at least for a few years.

When I came back to Christ I came as a Lutheran. Knowing that I had been baptized Lutheran as a baby, and upon learning that Lutheranism was the faith my dad's family brought over from the Old Country, I decided to return to the Lutheran Church. It was certainly a lot duller than the Baptist Church of my teenaged years, but the faith was more mature, and the Lutheran Church taught me to appreciate history. Of course, if they were smart, they would not encourage their parishioners to read too much Church history!

Anyway, I think most Evangelicals - like most people in general - are sincere.

I will admit, however, that I don't have much patience with die-hard Calvinists!

« Last Edit: January 05, 2004, 11:27:26 AM by Linus7 »

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The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers.- Pope St. Hormisdas

E.C. myself, but with E.O. friends and relatives (my father's generation practically grew up worshipping with the Orthodox as there was only one Melchite church in the village, and the priest could only come once a month from the neighouring village to celebrate Liturgy).

I have O.O. friends of course, and if you go back far enough in one of the branches of my family ancestry, you hit Coptic roots.

It's quite an experience living in a region where so many Churches have their natural home and live side by side. You can make friends and acquaintances of many religious backgrounds. Eclectic variety is the name of the game, when civil war isn't pitting factions against each other.

Sadly, there are few EO and OO in the area. I have only met one OO in person, and that was at a conference in Chicago. He was a very friendly and funny man. I would have to say that apart from this board, that is also all I knew of EOxy, although a senior member of the board, Serge, introduced me to this one, and I consider him a friend, although an e-friend.

My coworkers are evangelicals, and I consider them friends. I have made friends with agnostics and atheists. An old drinking buddy of mine is an agnostic, and one of my favorite professors was atheist, but he moved away.

I am RC, but as far as RC friends go, I'm a little short on them. I try to stay involved in my parish, but I am at age when all the Catholics my age have either left the Church or have gotten married. It seems like all the people at my church are either young or old, nothing in between.

"Never let anyone try to tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was fully Orthodox for a thousand years; and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies."- St. John Maximovitch

I, like you, got caught up in calvinism towards the end of my protestantism. Also, I , like you, have had a very negative experience spiritually with it. I felt at times that I could never know if I was reprobate or elect! Sometimes I felt like I was going crazy over this.

On a positive note,I think that part of what convinced me at the time to be calvinist is what eventually led me to the orthodox faith. Given the fact that as an evangelical, I never traced my christian heritage past the reformation. When I discovered that the reformers were almost unanimous in their doctrine of "double predestination", I thought to myself "How can I argue against history?- If this is what the reformers believed, then I must believe it".

After studying the church fathers, it came to my attention that the church was NEVER calvist; rather, it was the heretical gnostics who taught double predestination! This teaching was refuted by the early church fathers.

The problem with protestantism (and much of western christianity today), is that it does not allow for mystery. Everything has to be discted and pulled apart and "figured out" . It is as though the "enlightenment" period of history has crept in to much of western christianity.

The great thing about Orthodoxy is that it allows for mystery. Everything doesn't have to be "figured out" with our finite, feeble minds.

In fact, how do we explain the Trinity?, the Euchrist? how God always existed without a begining? ect..........the list could go on and on. The simple fact is,it's just a mystery!

Linus, I'm glad that someone here has had a similar experience as I did. Fortunatley, I never became atheist, but I think that we were both effected negativley by calvinism.

I think that the topic of calvinism would be a good thread. Mabey I'll start one.

God bless

Jake

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Troparion - Tone 1:O Sebastian, spurning the assemblies of the wicked,You gathered the wise martyrs Who with you cast down the enemy; And standing worthily before the throne of God, You gladden those who cry to you:Glory to him who has strengthened you! Glory to him who has granted you a crown!

I didn't vote because I think the poll is too narrow and implied that something was wrong with being friends with those outside of the Orthodox community. I don't see anything wrong with having friends outside of the EO community. In addition to friends at my parish, I have friends that are many shades of christian as well as buddist, hindu, jewish, agnostic and one confused atheist.

The whole point of the poll was to see how widely, not how narrowly, people are aware of other traditions. It is all to easy to criticise others without actually knowing anyone from that other tradition who can offer a corrective.

That's why I started the Poll. I'm not EO myself but belong to the OO communion.

The whole point of the poll was to see how widely, not how narrowly, people are aware of other traditions. It is all to easy to criticise others without actually knowing anyone from that other tradition who can offer a corrective.

That's why I started the Poll. I'm not EO myself but belong to the OO communion.

I see your point, however why didn't you include Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, Agnostic, Mormon, Non- orthodox christians in your poll? Why did you choose only to include OO, EO and RC?

Having non-Christian friends is fine and creating a poll to cover that would be appropriate, but I agree with Peter that the ultimate purpose of any worthwhile official interfaith dialogue is catechesis and hopefully conversion.

And to explain myself just a little more. I guessed that most folk here are OO, EO or RC and I wanted a rough idea of what proportions might be here and what sort of exposure that cross section of believers might have to each others traditions.

I agree with the interest of your wider point and if this was a wider community then I'd have added other options although I'd have needed a lot of options to cover all the possibilities in your list